Cioran summarized: “Mourir inconnu, c’est peut-être cela la grâce”. Voltaire had already concluded: “Vivre et mourir inconnu”. Valéry, in the same vein, notes that “peut-être, si les grands hommes étaient aussi conscients qu’ils sont grands, il n’y aurait pas des grands hommes pour soi-même”. What to say? Success is a burier. It is perhaps the greatest misfortune that can befall an artist; it is the harbinger of ruin. Success takes away from him the fruitful bitter nights, the terrible and wonderful questioning about his own talent. Success robs him of loneliness and deludes, throwing sand in the inner fire that incites him to study, to continuous evolution, to the improvement of technique, to the need for a fuller expression. Worse, much worse. Success opens up “possibilities” and imposes a “new function” on the artist. This, in fact, is death to him.
Tag: philosophy
There Is Only Humility in Silence
There is humility only in silence, in abstention, in the refusal of potentialities. A conviction, when externalized, is also a judgment of one’s own mental faculty. Only seeks to convince the one who holds himself in high esteem. A human being confesses a crime, but is unable to admit, by silence, the weakness of the intellect. Therefore, loquacity is the most evident sign of little wisdom.
No Society Can Endure and Thrive Without a Strong Cultural Base
No society can endure and prosper without a strong cultural base. A young country is naturally unstable. And a country that breaks with its origins, or stonewalls them, trying to erase its past, is heading toward collapse. Cultural destruction necessarily implies mass moral degradation. There is nothing more devastating to a society than an attempt to “rewrite the history”.
Modern Man Thinks He Is Important
Modern man has this distinction: he thinks he is important. And he runs to a psychologist when he unconsciously suspects that he is not. The depression he suffers at forty begins in childhood and extends into youth, when he grows up bombarded with lies, feeding in his mind a false vision of himself. He smiles because life offers him wonderful prospects; “future” is always an auspicious word; he starts to believe. And with the years, he has to face severe frustrations. Is it life’s fault? Obviously not: life has nothing to do with the animal’s presumption! Life is the victim of an epidemic falsification, a frightening incomprehension, and an unprecedented demeaning. A young person is trained, like a dog, to give certain answers to “what will he do with his life,” socially admirable answers, and learns to see the world in a mediocre light, valuing that which has no value. He begins by making mistakes about himself and ends up making mistakes about life.